Russian Snow, Spanish (Russian) Ballet

When I woke up this morning it was dark (one of the issues of living so far north) and it was not until just before I left for class that I noticed something odd going on outside.  Sometime in the night it had started to snow, not an unusual occurrence, but it had not stopped.  So now I get to see snow actually piling up on the ground, covering the roads and not just landing and melting!  

View Out my Bedroom Window

It snowed throughout class and for the first time I got to act an elementary school student in a place that actually has weather, look out the window and think about playing in the snow. Thankfully for both my sanity and my need to learn Russian today was a half day of Russian classes so by 11:45 I was out walking in the snow with some friends to lunch. 

My mistake of the day was to walk in front of the girl from Wisconsin; she had plenty of snow and knows how to use it against people who do not understand it.  And hilarity ensued:

With the rate it snowed all day and looking at the weather forecast it looks like this snow might even stick around on the ground for a while which should be fun.But even if it is gone by tomorrow, we still ventured to the ballet tonight amongst this mysterious white and wet substance.  Tonight we went to the Mariinsky Theater and watched the Mariinsky Ballet Company’s performance of a ballet adaptation of Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Our resident director was previously ballet dancer who performed in the Mariinsky Theater many times and knew how to pick a good show!

The show was only a tiny part of the plot of Don Quixote, and of course you do not watch the ballet to learn the story, but for the art dance and musical qualities.  The sets where beautiful, the costumes amazing, the orchestra better than the one we heard 2 weeks ago at the concert hall and the dancers where very good.  I was impressed by everything and had a very positive experience in the beautiful theatre.

At the end of the show we learned that the guest of honor for the night was the President of Slovenia, and he had been sitting in the box just under our seats!  Next week we are going to an opera in the same theatre based on Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and that should be just as amazing.

One more day of class (my electives) and then a weekend full of new sights and fun as the end of my time here draws nearer with each early sunset.